"And can you indeed be my old schoolmate, Flora S----?"

"My maiden name was Flora S----, and I went to Madame Martier's.
Your face is also familiar, but how to place you I do not know."

"Don't you remember Helen Sprague?"

"Helen Sprague! This can't be Helen Sprague, surely! Yes! I remember
now. Why, Helen?" and I stepped forward and grasped her hand. "I am
both glad and sorry to see you. To think that, after the lapse of
fifteen years, we should meet thus! How in the world is it that
fortune has been so unkind to you? I remember hearing it said that
you had married very well."

"I certainly never had cause to regret my marriage," replied Mrs.
Partridge, with more feeling than she had yet shown. "While my
husband lived I had every external blessing that I could ask. But,
just before he died, somehow or other he got behind-hand in his
business, and after his death, there being no one to see to things,
what he left was seized upon and sold, leaving me friendless and
almost penniless. Since then, the effort to get food and clothes for
my children has been so constant and earnest, that I have scarcely
had time to sit down and grieve over my losses and sufferings. It is
one perpetual struggle for life. And yet, though I cannot now keep
the tears from my eyes, I will not say that I am unhappy. Thus far,
all things necessary for me have come. I yet have my little flock
together, and a place that bears the sacred name of home."

I looked into Helen's face, over which tears were falling, and
wondered if I were not dreaming. At school she had been the